Reading the Detectives discussion
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July 2019 - Miss Pym Disposes - SPOILER Thread
I thought it began well, but then it became a book I was waiting to finish. The crime did not happen until very near the end, and up until then it read more like a cosy read. Once we had an actual crime, there were quite a few twists, which were unforeseen.
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Then I quite liked the last 30 or so pages, with Mary Innes's bargain and Beau's discovery of the shoe ornament. I imagine I will ponder the ending for awhile.
Now, was the 'okay but not compelling' part of the book (200 pages) worth the thought provoking 30 pages? I haven't decided. I think at least most of those 200 pages were necessary to develop the characters, which I liked, though maybe with less running thru the corridors.
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Or, would she have let her off if she hadn't liked her parents so very much?
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A rather chilling element of the book is the way Lucy almost thinks that Rouse's life is worth less than the others - I remember this passage brought me up short:
To break a woman's heart; to bring ruin and shame on Henrietta and the destruction of all she had built up; to rub out for ever the radiance of Beau, the Beau who was unconditioned to grief. Was that a life for a life? That was three—no, four lives for one.
And one not worth—
Oh, no. That she could not judge. For that one had to "see before and after," as Rick said. —
Although she tells herself here she can't judge, I think you definitely get the feeling that she is sympathising more with the others. I don't remember if she worries much about Rouse's loved ones?
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I found this quite peculiar too. I vaguely think I may have come across mentions of similar systems with nannies, though, being found places by their training schools.
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Yes, poor Rouse didn't really get a huge amount of sympathy. Even some of the teachers seemed quite irritated by the initial accident!
I wasn't surprised by the final twist, in fact it seemed the most likely explanation. What did surprise me was Beau's behavior when she discovered the fatal clue. Surely she would have known when it went missing and would have been more worried and suspicious when it turned out that Miss Pym had it? Maybe even have attacked Miss Pym in a panic? And that begs the question--why was Innes wearing the shoes, days earlier? The two couldn't have conspired to mislead or Beau wouldn't have acknowledged that the shoes were hers.Those seem like the only logical flaws in an otherwise well-constructed story. And I liked the unreliable-narrator aspect of it.
Abigail wrote: "I wasn't surprised by the final twist, in fact it seemed the most likely explanation. What did surprise me was Beau's behavior when she discovered the fatal clue. Surely she would have known when i..."I agree that her behavior seemed a little 'low-key'. I had assumed that there were 2 separate pairs of shoes.
The ending was a twist I did not see coming. Until then, I thought it was an amusing, but slightly pedestrian narrative. (In my mind 3*, the twist added a .5*). Although, once it was laid out it made complete sense.
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I also struggled with the "face reflects personality" approach, although this is questioned by Henrietta having a soft spot for Rouse, who clearly faces the same struggles she did due in part at least to her unattractive appearance, and then of course demolished by the aptly named Beau being, in fact, the sort of person who will not allow herself to be thwarted in anything. I also thought that if Miss Pym had in fact handed in the rosette and an inquest had arisen, I can't imagine Beau would have let her friend take the blame for her, and so the truth would likely have come out (and I'm sure an excellent lawyer and the sort of favouritism applied to the attractive and wealthy and upper-class would have got her out of her difficulties).
I agree that the 2 sets of shoes were never fully explained-was Mary wearing her friends shoes to the party?
Also, why did Mary understand immediately what Miss Pym was implying when showing her the rosette, if she'd been ignorant of what had happened up to that point? When would she have started to suspect her friend, if everyone had thought it was an accident secondary to Rouse's not setting the pin properly?
Overall, though, I really enjoyed the entire story-I loved the college atmosphere and meeting the various personalities and didn't mind that the mystery came so close to the end. I would have enjoyed reading another novel about either Miss Pym at home, or about some of the school characters. It almost felt that there were too many individual stories and that it would have been nice to follow some of them further. What happens to Dakers? What about the Nut Tart (I loved that she just continued to call her that-do we learn her first name?) or Miss Lux and the actor? Lots of unmet potential for individual novels!
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On Rouse, interesting that Lucy doesn't have a good word to say for her, but Henrietta says she is a good teacher and actually gets on a lot better with her students than Innes does. Henrietta's real knowledge of the individuals versus Lucy's theorising and jumping to conclusion based on their eyebrows etc!
The Nut Tart's real name is Teresa Desterro. Definitely a book where the individual characters are quite vivid and different from each other. I would also like to know what happens to them all later.
I agree about the interesting characters. I almost wonder if Tey was considering developing some of them later???
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Mary borrowed Beau's shoes after the murder and noticed the rosette was missing. Beau had no idea when or where the rosette disappeared (she probably has many shoes). Once Miss Pym tells Mary where she found the rosette Mary knows how it got there. I can picture Beau complaining to Mary about the unfairness and how something should be done!
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It seemed obvious, from reading that, that women being hung was a horribly emotive issue for many in the country. Indeed, one executioner actually tried to commit suicide after hanging a female prisoner, who was drugged to the point of almost being asleep, so that he, and two guards, virtually had to carry her and Pierrepoint stated he never got over the Ruth Ellis case. It seemed men, in both the law and the press, had terrible problems with both being seen as the protector and doing the unthinkable.
Miss Pym also seems to worry the most that, if she tells the truth, then Mary will suffer a trial for murder which could lead to that possibility. I often forget that, in the thirties, we still had the death penalty, but reading the Mrs Rattenbury case so recently, made me wonder about this novel too.
Was hanging the only possible sentence for a murder conviction? Or was it one of a series of options? If it was the only sentence allowed, I retract my previous objections to plots that allow the perpetrator the "gentleman's way out."
I finished last night, I agree with Abigail in that I thought Beau was the more likely culprit, so I wasn't too surprised by the twist. I had also assumed that Mary had borrowed Beau's shoes. I was going to rate it 3* but the end raised it to 4 for me.
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Interesting question, Abigail - I've just been looking this up, and, according to the Wikipedia page on the Homicide Act of 1957:
"Until the Homicide Act was passed the mandatory penalty for all adults convicted of murder was death by hanging. After decades of campaigning, abolitionists secured a partial victory with the Act, which limited the circumstances in which murderers could be executed, requiring mandatory life imprisonment in all other cases."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicid...
Lots more interesting details in the article.
So, if Lucy had told what she knew and Beau had been found guilty, she would have been hanged - and Mary is also risking being hanged by her false confession.
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Thank you for that information, Judy! It totally changes my view of the sleuths who allow their perps to commit suicide before the police close in. When a perp has been humanized or is not someone likely to kill again, the sleuth may be exercising merciful judgment or even quietly protesting what he or she may regard as an unjust or draconian law. Before I had this information I tended to criticize what I saw only as a cliche ending. You've deepened my understanding of the genre!That said, I'd guess that Beau would kill again. At some point in her life she'll encounter another situation she finds objectionable and will take the same path to removing the obstacle.
I didn't know this either. I think she should have shown the rosette to someone, however, I now see why Miss Pym did what she did. I felt much more satisfied knowing that it was Beau not Mary that did it.
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I found it disturbing that Miss Pym kept quiet about it and allowed Mary to get away with such a lenient "punishment" when she thought she was the culprit - but I wasn't really thinking about the fact that a young girl would go to the gallows, and you can certainly see why she didn't want that outcome.
All the same, it's appalling that Beau gets away with it and I agree with Abigail that she would be likely to kill again - other motives like the desire to see Mary get a job could easily come up. This is one of the great things about this book - the way it keeps you thinking about what Lucy should have done. I do just wish that the murder came earlier in the story!
I struggled with this book quite a bit-- most of it moved so slowly, and I just couldn't get emotionally invested in any of the characters, except for Mrs Innes. After I finally finished the book, I had to wonder if Tey had deliberately made only Mrs Innes so appealing out of the whole cast of characters, so that the reader felt sympathetic and understanding of Miss Pym's ethical dilemna, and actually cared about the outcome. I really enjoyed the final twist, but in the end it didn't come soon enough to redeem the book for me.
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There is a lot to read before arriving at the interesting part.
My 'favorite' character was the South American student and felt somewhat invested in her future.
I actually found the whole thing interesting.
Agreed, Abigail, I would have loved to hear more about how the various students ended up.
I think once I gave up the idea of a traditional murder mystery with a death early on and then a hunt for the guilty party and started reading it as a novel about the social situation in a close-knit and closed-in community of young women, both working together and competing for grades and placements, as seen through the eyes of an outside observer (who herself remembers going through a similar process) I really enjoyed this read.
The school curriculum struck me as being rather odd-- you can go on to teach gymnastics... or you can be a doctor!The biggest problem I have with the book is that Innes sacrifices her whole future and gives up all her dreams to atone for keeping silent about Beau's involvement in the murder, while Miss Pym doesn't make any sacrifice at all for doing exactly the same thing (there was some murmuring at the end about giving up on psychology and writing books about facial features, but that isn't exactly a sacrifice, given that psychology wasn't her field at all, and The Book was written simply as a layperson's rebuttal to existing literature in the field). Rouse's death could be laid partially on Miss Pym because if she hadn't destroyed the cheat booklet, action would have been taken to find its owner, and there would have been no reason for Rouse's "accident" happening to get Innes the job she wanted. Innes lost everything and will always live under the shadow of suspicion, while Beau and Miss Pym walk away unscathed.
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I'd just seen the more obvious point that it's a demonstration of how Lucy is ready to take everything into her own hands and "dispose", as she does again after the murder.
Definitely agree that it's rather odd that the training enables them to work as either a gym teacher or a doctor!
Suki wrote: "The biggest problem I have with the book is that Innes sacrifices her whole future and gives up all her dreams to atone for keeping silent about Beau's involvement in the murder, while Miss Pym doesn't make any sacrifice at all for doing exactly the same thing"I've just finished this and am interested to see the various views on here. My take is that Tey is deliberately subverting the classic GA crime by leaving all these uncomfortable questions and observations at the end, rather than tying them up neatly. If the genre is about moving from the chaos of murder to the comforting tidying away of crime to leave a sense of order restored, then Tey is refusing this.
As others have mentioned, there is a chain of decisions and judgments by various people that have consequences and lead to the death: Henrietta's favoritism of Rouse and Lucy's decision to cover up the cheating are just two of them.
Even the 'unfair' ending that has Innes suffering while Lucy and Beau walk away is a way of disrupting the shape of the GA conventions.
Sandy wrote: "Interesting view that the murder was made 'necessary' when Miss Pym destroyed the cheat book. I never saw that aspect and wonder if Miss Pym did."In all fairness, I don't believe that Rouse was meant to die, she was just supposed to be sidelined long enough for Innes to get the prized job, but it was Miss Pym's decision to "dispose" (interesting double meaning there, the title could be taken to mean that she threw something away-- the cheat book, Innes' career-- and/or that she played God) that resulted in Beau's action.
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I have been wondering about this since reading it some time ago - I was outraged by the unfairness, but I think you are right about the point being that order is not restored.
Do you think that Rouse's unpopularity is also questioning the convention of the "unpopular" victim whom readers aren't really supposed to bother about? I'd like to think so, but I don't really think it reads like that, because Lucy shares the feeling that Rouse's life is worth less than those of the more popular girls.
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Could be, but I believe it is Innes who says she wasn't supposed to die? If so, I'm not sure that it's true, given Beau's "cold eyes" - I do wonder if she always intended to kill.
Roman Clodia wrote: "Even the 'unfair' ending that has Innes suffering while Lucy and Beau walk away is a way of disrupting the shape of the GA conventions." Yes, exactly. And then there is the irony that someone who prides herself on her understanding of psychology to the point where she writes a book refuting the opinions of experts in the field is so completely oblivious to the way her actions and decisions are impacting the lives of others. Miss Pym seems to be a very shallow, self-centered person with the way she reflects that maybe she doesn't understand psychology as well as she thought she did, so her next book will be about reading faces (written under an assumed name of course, so as to avoid ridicule) instead of thinking about the girl who lost her life and the other who lost her future. When she does spare a thought for them, she justifies her own actions by blaming Henrietta for her unpopular decision to give the job to Rouse. Henrietta pays for her decision by herself and her school losing their excellent reputations. Would Henrietta's decision to award the job to Rouse have initiated the same chain of events if Miss Pym had never set foot at the school, or if she had just stayed overnight and returned to London the following day as she had originally meant to do?
Judy wrote: "...I believe it is Innes who says she wasn't supposed to die? If so, I'm not sure that it's true, given Beau's "cold eyes" - I do wonder if she always intended to kill."It was a very odd thing for Innes to say: "...it wasn't meant to be-- I know you'll think I'm just trying to white-wash it, but it was never meant to be-- to be the way it turned out. It was because I was so sick about missing Arlinghurst-- I practically lost my reason over that for a time-- I behaved like an idiot. It got so that I couldn't think of anything in the world but Arlinghurst. And this was just to be a way of-- of letting me have a second chance at it. It was never meant to be more than that."
Innes goes on to ask Miss Pym to conceal the evidence. Earlier in the conversation, she admitted that the shoes with the rosette were hers, and that she owned the only pair in school. She immediately understands the significance of Miss Pym finding the rosette when and where she did. Innes seems to know a lot more than she should about the "accident", and it is pointed out during the course of the story that she and Beau are very close. What did they talk about on the night Beau visited Innes in her room? Did Innes and Beau go together to loosen the pin, did Innes know what Beau did and was covering for her, or was Beau covering for Innes? It seems rather strange that Beau would suddenly claim to own a pair of the same shoes that Innes claimed she owned the only pair of in school (especially since Beau is wealthy and could easily afford other comfortable shoes), yet Miss Pym only ever saw Innes wearing the shoes. Is Beau so "cold-eyed" because she is a murderer, or because she is defending her friend and removing evidence of murder from Miss Pym having access to it? (And remember, we only have Miss Pym's word for the state of Beau's eyes, and her own behavior makes her a somewhat unreliable narrator.) I wanted to think that Innes was innocent, but some of the things she said really bothered me. I was very happy to accept Beau as the guilty party, but maybe Innes' fate was not as unfair as I first thought.
The whole story is full of imponderables and reminders that we shouldn't presume to understand others. Henrietta's not exempt--you'd have thought she'd have a better sense of the impact her unpopular choice of Rouse for the post would have on the school community. And she deliberately draws out the suspense and expectations over the appointment, so the impact of her choice, when it comes, is all the more devastating. It's hard to escape the idea that Tey believes we are all innocent and all guilty, and it's not our place to judge. It's a radical idea, especially for the era when she's writing, and for me personally, she takes it further than I am willing to follow. It certainly has gotten us all to think, though!
Hi All, I've just joined, as I completed this book a few days ago and had questions so I read your comments and learned MUCH but still have questions.I realize this is Miss Pym's story, and Miss Pym gets her comeuppance for being such a fake: she'll spend the rest of her life thinking about what she should have done. But:
Henrietta toys with everyone about the great position, upping the tension, slowing leaking information, and in the process shows she isn't such a good school leader after all: to play with emotions, to enjoy seeing Innes all starry-eyed and thrilled about the great promotion, then to crush Innes. That's pretty evil. Pym is wrong about so much, so I think Pym is wrong here: this has nothing to do with Henrietta looking like a 'sack of flour' and favouring the less attractive student: Henrietta just wants to crush to brilliant, pretty student in an evil power play. So she's as much a fake as Pym.
Now, it's apparent the real killer is Beau. But Beau is rich and I don't understand why Beau would kill, on her own, for the great position.Perhaps Beau and Innes planned the murder together, but Innes seemed liked a really good person, a hard worker, and I can't see Innes planning a murder in the first place. So it seems to me Beau is the murderer and maybe did it FOR Innes.
Shoes: Okay, the shoes are Beau's, and she loses the rosette after commiting the crime. AND, she knows the rosette is missing. Therefore, to GIVE the shoes to Innes indicates that Beau has decided to implicate Innes anyway. Were they lovers or something and then disagreed about the murder?
Shoes again: I realize Innes is not rich. But who would accept a pair of shoes when it's obvious there is something wrong with them: a rosette is missing. After all, Innes is meeting with her parents the next day, right and would want to make a good impression. (if I have everything in the right order.) I just don't believe Innes would have accepted AND worn the faulty pair of shoes.
Final question: who got the great job? Innes says no, Beau is a murderer and I don't believe she wanted the job anyway.And, Pym could have easily went straight to the cops when Beau says she was wondering about where that rosette went. Pym likes Innes, likes her parents. But Pym could have gone to the cops, said she had no idea what was really going on until Beau took ownership of the rosette, and Beau (who Pym no longer likes at all-and remember how she disliked the loud, gleeful, bell-ringing Pamela/Beau/Nash character at the beginning of the story.) Henrietta and Pym make quite the set of friends, don't they: both fake and on the evil side. Thank you, if you've read this far. (I tend to ramble.)
I agree with you about Henrietta--and she's especially culpable because she's in a position of power and abuses it for her own emotional rush.And I agree that the shoe stuff doesn't make a lot of sense.
Abigail wrote: "I agree with you about Henrietta--and she's especially culpable because she's in a position of power and abuses it for her own emotional rush.And I agree that the shoe stuff doesn't make a lot of..."
Hi Abigail, I don't get the women/shoes relationship fashion thing. BUT, I do get that on the BIGGEST day of a young ladies life, she isn't going to wear obviously worn, 2nd hand shoes, even if she had to ask Miss Pym for a few bucks...or anyone for a few bucks...and EVEN IF she has found out she doesn't get the GREAT JOB...still, Innes is going to impress her parents, no matter. Yes, this is Pym's story, but the all-too-quick final pages seemed intentionally rushed so that readers wouldn't look to close. where oh where is Poirot when we most need him...
Judy wrote: "I had the feeling that, if Barbara Rouse had been the killer and she had killed Beau or Mary, Lucy probably wouldn't have been so ready to consider a cover-up. A rather chilling element of the bo..."
Judy, good points. Pym is such a fake. She is no psychologist, but as the book progresses, she actually accepts the title 'psychologist', then convinces herself she IS...and sadly DOES treat people differently, especially Rouse.
Published in 1946, this is a stand alone novel by Josephine Tey.
Leys Physical Training College is famous for its excellent discipline and its spectacularly athletic students. Miss Lucy Pym, expert psychologist, is pleased and flattered to be invited to lecture there - even if the Olympian splendour of the students leaves her feeling just a little inadequate.
But a nasty accident spoils the occasion, and suddenly Miss Pym must turn her intellect to the unpleasant suspicion that, among all these healthy young students, there lurks an incurably sick mind...
Please feel free to post spoilers in this thread.